Archaeologists working in London’s River Thames have found a well-preserved pair of thigh-high leather boots on the skeleton of a man, prompting further investigation into just how the late 15th or early 16th century footwear wound up buried in mud.

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The archaeologists who made the discovery were building the British capital’s new, multibillion-dollar “supersewer” when they came upon the facedown remains of a man in mud with one arm above his head and the other bent back on itself to the side, according to MOLA Headland, the firm leading the project.

MOLA said in a news release that the man’s attire was intriguing; leather was expensive at the time, so it’s unlikely he was deliberately buried in the boots.

And since the boots came up so high on his legs, it’s possible he worked in the river, as high boots would have helped him better wade through the water and its sticky mud.

The strange position in which he was found suggests he may have fallen and drowned, only to have the mud quickly flood over him as the tide moved.

“With the booted man, examining his teeth has given clues about his childhood and marks on his skeleton have allowed us to proffer ideas about the aches and pains he may have suffered from on a daily basis, the toll his job took on his body and even a little about what he might have looked like,” said Niamh Carty, human osteologist at MOLA Headland.

The man is believed to have been younger than 35 when he died, and the archaeologists believe he may possibly have been a fisherman since he had grooves on his teeth. Fisherman of the time would often pass a rope between their teeth as they worked.

The skeleton was found in Bermondsey, south London, near the former site of the medieval Bermondsey Wall, suggesting that perhaps he was climbing the wall and fell.